6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.9 |
The true story of a Vietnamese village girl who survives a life of suffering and hardship during and after the Vietnam war. As a freedom fighter, a hustler, young mother, a sometime prostitute, and the wife of a US. marine, the girl's relationships with men suggests an analogy of Vietnam as Woman and the U.S. as Man.
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Joan Chen, Haing S. Ngor, Dale Dye, Hiep Thi LeBiography | 100% |
War | 75% |
History | 40% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The United States’ long and tortured experience in Vietnam has given rise to a number of notable films, including Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, The Deer Hunter , and Oliver Stone’s Platoon. Stone revisited the aftereffects of Vietnam a la Coming Home in his adaptation of Born on the Fourth of July. Still not finished with examining the way this contentious conflict spilled into the lives of its combatants, even long after hostilities had officially ceased, Stone returned to Vietnam, both literally and figuratively, for his 1993 opus Heaven & Earth, a film that’s rather interestingly told from a somewhat different viewpoint than most American films about Vietnam—namely, Heaven & Earth details the horrors of war (and its aftereffects) from the perspective of a Vietnamese woman. Heaven & Earth didn’t fare very well with either critics or audiences when it was released, but it’s an often intriguing film that offers some perhaps surprisingly lyrical imagery and some forceful performances from a large cast which includes Tommy Lee Jones, Debbie Reynolds, and Vietnamese actress Hiep Thi Le, who delivers a moving performance as Le Ly, a young Vietnamese girl who suffers a string of misfortunes that might put Job to shame.
Heaven & Earth is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. This is an oddly lyrical looking film quite a bit of the time (considering its somewhat dour subject matter, anyway), and that ambience translates quite beautifully to high definition. The first hour and a half or so of the film takes place in Vietnam, and Stone and cinematographer Robert Richardson offer huge panoramic shots that are often breathtaking. The greens in these sequences are truly astounding, though at times the fields of grass seem to be one congealed entity rather than separate blades. Depth of field is also quite impressive in several wide shots. A lot of Heaven & Earth is intentionally gauzy looking, with a kind of misty ambience that some may mistake for softness in the transfer. Some darker sequences, especially in the film's first torture segments, don't really offer much in the way of shadow detail, but overall general detail and fine detail are both excellent, especially in more brightly lit environments and most especially in close-ups. There are several cutaways that are in black and white, including some with some minimal visual effects added, and those are reasonably crisp and clear looking. Very minor banding is in evidence during some of the outdoor footage in the lighter gradients, as are some anomalies that slightly afflict edges of objects. Grain (which can occasionally be fairly heavy) resolves naturally and there are no intrusive signs of aggressive digital tweaking of the image.
Heaven & Earth features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix which provides consistent surround activity courtesy of Kitaro's somewhat overwrought but intermittently touching score and some well placed ambient environmental effects. This isn't a traditional "war" film, with booming LFE and lots of gunfire and explosions, so instead immersion tends to happen more subtly, with the chatter of leaves in the breeze or gurgling water or the relative noise of a quasi-urban Vietnamese environment. Dialogue is presented very cleanly and clearly and is well prioritized on this problem free track.
Heaven & Earth has noble intentions, to be sure, so if it can't quite muster up the resolve to present things completely cogently, it's still a worthwhile effort that is often supremely (if somewhat ironically) scenic. Jones is in fine form, and I personally found Hiep Thi Li to be quite moving as Le Ly (evidently her performance was met with some skepticism at the time of the film's original theatrical release). Stone is often accused of making screeds instead of films, and that proclivity is still in evidence throughout much of Heaven & Earth, but it's obvious war and its aftereffects weigh heavily upon his mind and heart. Casting that pain through the eyes of a Vietnamese woman is a fairly significant approach and despite its flaws, Heaven & Earth comes Recommended.
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